Electrical connector assemblies, which allow for the connection of one or more electrical nodes or lines with one or more other electrical nodes or lines, are ubiquitous in a variety of electronics applications. Among these are applications involving electrical power distribution as well as applications involving electronic communications such as computer networks.
Commonly, electrical connector assemblies include male and female connectors, the former having pins and the latter having complementary sockets. Further, one known manner of manufacturing such male and female connectors involves the fitting of metallic pins or sockets into plastic support structures or “inserts,” where the plastic inserts have complementary holes for receiving the pins/sockets. When the pins/sockets are fully assembled into the plastic inserts, the pins/sockets extend beyond their complementary holes and outward from one or more surfaces of the plastic inserts such that contacting ends of the pins/sockets can receive/be received by complementary sockets/pins.
Also, typically extending from the ends of the pins/sockets opposite to their contacting ends are leads or wires, which often are crimped within recesses of the pins/sockets so as to affix the wires to the pins/sockets. Thus, the final positioning of the pins/sockets and wires on a connector typically is such that pins/sockets extend from a surface proximate one end of the connector and wires (or a cable) extend from a surface proximate the other end, where the pins/sockets and portions of the wires are generally supported by and positioned within the plastic inserts.
When the pins/sockets and wires are in place with respect to an insert, an overmolding step typically is performed upon a large portion of the insert so as to more fully and permanently lock the pins/sockets and corresponding wires in place with respect to the plastic insert. The overmolding step often involves encapsulating the end of the insert from which the wires extend in a plastic or rubber-type material.
One difficulty in manufacturing connector assemblies in this manner involves the tendency of the pins/sockets and corresponding wires to fall out of the complementary holes within the plastic inserts prior to the application of the overmolding. This tendency conventionally is overcome in one of two manners. One manner involves forcibly locking the pins/sockets into place within their complementary holes within the plastic inserts. A second manner involves, prior to the application of the overmolding, the application of a glue-type material often termed “hot melt” to lock the pins/sockets in place with respect to the plastic inserts.
Each of these conventional manners of securing the pins/sockets and corresponding wires in place with respect to the plastic inserts is disadvantageous. The first manner involving forcible insertion of the pins/sockets is undesirable at least insofar as the insertion process is difficult to standardize and often must be done by hand. As a result, the process can be time-consuming and costly to perform. The second manner involving the application of hot melt is undesirable at least insofar as it requires an additional manufacturing step that takes additional time to perform and also can be messy.
For at least these reasons, therefore, it would be desirable if a new type of connector (and/or connector assembly) was developed that could be manufactured without the need for either manual insertion of pins/sockets into plastic inserts or the application of hot melt. Further, it would be desirable if the new type of connector had the same external capabilities as conventional connectors, both in terms of its connectability with other connectors (and/or other complementary terminals), and also in terms of its robustness.